Choices

Perhaps the greatest power humans possess is the power of choice. It seems nothing brings us greater pleasure than the power to choose, but nothing brings a greater potential for pain and destruction like choice.

Our lives are the sum of our choices, therefore, it behooves us to learn to choose wisely. Learning to choose wisely means we understand some important principles:

1. Our choices have consequences

On this planet where people, companies, nations are all exercising their ability to choose means we will all be profoundly affected by their decisions. This means the decisions people make and the things people do link up to constitute our circumstances. For the most part then, things don’t just happen; rather, people do things.

Crime doesn’t rise… people commit more crimes. Prices don’t rise: people raise prices. We use all sorts of convenient verbal shorthand to say that things happen, but it doesn’t change the fact that people cause things.

Groups of people are nothing but people, whether they are congress, a mob, or a committee. The legal system doesn’t do anything; judges, jurors, lawyers, and legislators do. The arts don’t flourish: artist create and patrons buy their work. Everyday people make decisions in boardrooms and executive offices that set policies affecting millions of people.

One night in December 1982 a husband and wife from Westland, Michigan, were driving home when a fourteen-pound bowling ball crashed through their windshield, killing the husband. Did something admittedly pretty bizarre just happen to him? No. A nineteen-year-old teen in a car up ahead tossed the bowling ball out his window and let it bounce down the road.

Learning to make wise choices means I understand that my choices profoundly affect me and others.

2. You can choose, but you can’t choose your consequences.

We live in a world governed by strict laws of cause and effect; if you jump out of ten story window, gravity will pull you down to your death. If you sow corn, you will reap corn. When choices are made, they are mirrored by their consequences. “My experience shows that those who plant trouble and cultivate evil will harvest the same.” (Job 4.8 Bible)

Just as reliable physical laws operate in our universe, equally fixed and functional laws operate in the spiritual realm. Solomon, considered to be the wisest man who ever lived wrote “He who brings trouble on his family will inherit only wind.” (Prov. 11.29 Bible) He learned that truth firsthand, and in this day of moral relativism, people need to remember that moral absolutes exist in the universe.